New Defender's Study Bible Notes

1:35overshadow thee. This marvelous work of God can be nothing less than direct creation. Some have suggested such quasi-naturalistic hypotheses as parthenogenesis or artificial insemination, or perhaps that the Holy Spirit somehow fertilized Mary’s naturally produced egg, but such stratagems could only caricature the amazing incarnation—the entrance of the omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal God of creation into finite human flesh. We cannot comprehend the mechanics of such a miracle; we can only believe God’s Word.

1:35holy thing. It is striking that the embryonic Jesus in Mary’s womb must be called “that holy thing”—not “the babe” or “the child” or something else. There is no human word to fit. Actually the word “thing” is not in the original—just “the holy,” or perhaps “the holy [One].”